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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26057680">Rival Teachers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connorjace/pseuds/Connorjace'>Connorjace</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Character(s), Fluff, Former Doctor Will Solace, M/M, Secret Relationship, Teacher Nico di Angelo, Teacher Will Solace, Very Aged-Up Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 10:55:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,277</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26057680</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connorjace/pseuds/Connorjace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two retiring teachers, Mr. di Angelo and Dr. Solace, have a long standing rivalry at Olympus High School.  Or do they?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nico di Angelo/Will Solace</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>160</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rival Teachers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>All the students who attend Olympus High School have heard of the famous rivalry between the Italian and biology teachers.  The two can’t stand each other, so much so that they actively avoid being in the same room as the other.  At almost every school dance or pep rally, when one enters the gym the other will give a glare and immediately turn and leave.</p><p>This is made more confusing because the two should be the most compatible teachers at the school.  They are both in (what students guess) their early sixties, and they both constantly get teased by their students when they fail with technology.  And they both are married, well, the rings on their left ring fingers say they are.  Both teachers refuse to talk about their personal lives with any student.  To top off why everyone thinks they should get along, both teachers announced they were retiring after this school year.  What more reasons do teens need for these two to have an epic bromance.</p><p>Which takes us to today, the final week of the school year.</p><p>Mr. di Angelo, the Italian teacher, has allowed his students to decorate his classroom for the last week while they will be taking their exams.  So, Monday before the first bell rings, some students from each of his classes come to his room as planned, decorations in hand, where they find the most unexpected visitor talking to Mr. di Angelo, Dr. Solace, the medical doctor turned biology teacher. </p><p>The few students who walked in just stand and look at the pair, frozen.  Mr. di Angelo gives them a look that reads get on with it and so they start hanging the banner and streamers.  </p><p>The fact that Dr. Solace is in Mr. di Angelo’s classroom despite their apparent rivalry is not the strangest part, it’s the fact that Dr. Solace is speaking to the other man in fluent Italian.  The conversation carries on until the warning bell rings and Dr. Solace just looks at the clock before turning and leaving the room.  </p><p>The news spreads through the school so everyone knows about it by second period.  The development in the relationship of the two teachers is apparently even gossiped about by some of the newer teachers.</p><p>In third period a senior is brave enough to as Dr. Solace about it.  “Dr. Solace, how come you were with Mr. di Angelo this morning and speaking Italian to him?”</p><p>“I have spoken Italian for most of my life and Mr. di Angelo and I are friends,” he responds shortly before going back to his review lesson.</p><p>By the start of lunch everyone has heard that Dr. Solace called Mr. di Angelo his friend.  So, in fifth period the same senior asks the same this to Mr. di Angelo, “Sir, how come Dr. Solace was in your classroom this morning?”</p><p>“And why is this your business?” Mr. di Angelo asks back, twisting his wedding ring, a nervous habit students have noticed he has.</p><p>“We just never thought you and Dr. Solace liked each other,” the student responds.  Nico raises an eyebrow as if to ask for more information. “I mean, you guys have never been in the same room as each other before.  We have noticed one of you always leaves the gym during dances and stuff if the other comes in.”</p><p>“Ahh yes. Wil-,” he hesitates, “I mean Dr. Solace and I have always been on opposite rotations during events.”</p><p>At his slip up all the students in the class have their eyes open.  Not a single other teacher has ever called Dr. Solace by his first name, but they occasionally refer to other teachers by their names.  But never Dr. Solace. In fact, no student has ever known Dr. Solace’s first name until now.  Mr. di Angelo has the decency to try and look guilty at saying Dr. Solace’s first name, but he doesn’t really. </p><p>Lucky for him the bell chooses to ring so the class quickly leaves to process this new development.  It takes thirty seconds for Mr. di Angelo’s classroom to empty of all but one student.  She walks up to her teacher’s desk and tells him, “You let his name slip and you don’t look guilty. Are you two planning something?” </p><p>He looks back at her and says, “You better not be late, I know you have his class next.”</p><p>She grins and leaves for her last class.  She walks into Dr. Solace’s sixth period for AP biology and walks to her desk and scribbles a note.  She walks to the front and slides it to Dr. Solace.  It reads Your name is out and it wasn’t my fault. Do I get my $50 bucks? I didn’t break over three years.  After he reads it, he puts his face in his hands and starts shaking it, but a small smile is forming.  </p><p>Soon the final bell rings and students are fleeing his classroom. He looks at the girl and gives her a nod before she leaves too.</p><p>Over the next three days students are too busy taking their exams to think about the two retiring teachers.  Their school is cool because after the final exam they have the gym open for students to come to the retirement party for the teachers who leave.  The tradition includes individual big banners with their names that the teachers stay under so students can see where the teacher’s they want to say goodbye too are.</p><p>When the first few students come in the gym, they assume there has been a mistake.  They know only the two teachers are retiring, but there is only one banner in the middle of the gym with di Angelo-Solace typed out on it.  There are also lots of chairs on the gym floor and the bleachers on the other side of the gym have been pulled out.  Something different is about to happen and word spreads quickly.  Not 20 minutes after the bell has rung the gym is almost full of students, who are talking about what could be happening because the two teachers have not arrived yet.</p><p>The girl who teased both teachers that Monday then walks out under the banner holding a mic.  “I can see the confusion on everyone’s faces,” she starts.  “Today is a little different because the two men retiring had a bet.  Ever since Dr. Solace started working here him and Mr. di Angelo have fueled a rumor that the two of them did not like each other.  And I became a part of that bet when I started here three years ago.  And this bet spiraled into something the two of them were not prepared for, so they have decided to set the record straight,” she hesitates before adding, “or well maybe not straight.”</p><p>Then the lights in the gym are turned down and a projector starts playing on the wall above the banner with their names.  And the slideshow is filled of photos of what looks like the two teachers, but younger.  The photos of the two of them keep changing and the two men in them slowly age.  The last photo that shows is the two men, they look only a few years younger, and they are standing in tuxes and putting rings on each other’s fingers.</p><p>The slide show stops and the lights are turned back on and the two men are suddenly seen sitting on two plastic chairs, close enough so their thighs are touching, hands clasped together.  They sit there and smile at one another, like no one else in in that gym, before it erupts in clapping and yells of support.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hi thank you for reading. </p><p>The girl is their granddaughter if you didn’t catch that.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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